About

Associate Professor Luis Alarcon-Martinez

Principal Investigator, Head of Visual Neurovascular Research

Associate Professor Luis Alarcon-Martinez investigates how blood is distributed in the retina, optic nerve and brain to help prevent or treat retinal neurodegenerative diseases.

Associate Professor Luis Alarcon-Martinez

Principal Investigator, Head of Visual Neurovascular Research

BSc, MSc, PhD

Associate Professor Luis Alarcon-Martinez is a Principal Investigator and Head of the Visual Neurovascular Research Unit at CERA. His research focuses on how vascular dysfunction may contribute to neurodegenerative disorders and vision loss.

Associate Professor Alarcon-Martinez has spent over a decade working in visual sciences and neuroscience in Europe, Canada and the US. He has developed sophisticated technical skills, including innovative imaging set-ups and microsurgical skills to study vision-related diseases such as glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration and ischemic retinopathy.

He has an excellent publication record with a h-index of 25 and a total of 37 peer-reviewed publications, including articles in journals such as Nature, PNAS, eLife and Brain, letters and book chapters. He is also a reviewer for several scientific journals, including Nature Neuroscience, Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, Circulation Research and Scientific Reports.

Associate Professor Alarcon-Martinez has gained several distinctions, including the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting Young Scientist and the Best National Thesis in Ophthalmology (Spain; MSD-Merck Sharp & Dohme prize).

Key research questions

What are the mechanisms of neurovascular communication in the retina, optic nerve and brain?
How does vascular dysfunction affect the retina, optic nerve and brain?
How is neurovascular coupling regulated in retinal neurodegenerative diseases such as optic nerve neuropathy, glaucoma, and ischemic retinopathy?

Selected publications

My team

Funding and support

Selected publications

Alarcon-Martinez L, et. al. (2022). Pericyte dysfunction and loss of inter-pericyte tunneling nanotubes promote neurovascular deficits in glaucoma. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

Alarcon-Martinez L, et. al. (2020). Inter-pericyte tunneling nanotubes regulate neurovascular coupling. Nature, 585(7823):91-95.

Alarcon-Martinez L, et. al. (2019). Retinal Ischemia Induces α-SMA-mediated Capillary Pericyte Contraction Coincident with Perivascular Glycogen Depletion. Acta Neuropathol Commun., 7(1):134.

Alarcon-Martinez L, et. al. (2018). Capillary pericytes express α-smooth muscle actin, which requires prevention of filamentous-actin depolymerization for detection. eLife, 7:e34861.